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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588644">Killing Cloud</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c'>sanctum_c</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Aerti Week 2018 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aerti Week, Aerti Week 2018, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, Bounty Hunters, Developing Relationship, F/F, Flowers, Girls Kissing, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, Lesbian Character, Mid-Canon, Midgar (Compilation of FFVII), Murder, No Dialogue, Not Advent Children (Compilation of FFVII) Compliant, Not Before Crisis (Compilation of FFVII) Compliant, Not Compilation of Final Fantasy VII Compliant, Not Crisis Core (Compilation of FFVII) Compliant, Not Dirge of Cerberus (Compilation of FFVII) Compliant, Not Final Fantasy VII Remake Compliant, POV Tifa Lockhart, Poison, Poisoning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2018-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2018-08-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:09:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,659</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588644</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Cloud Strife was a difficult man to kill. Not for want of trying or opportunities. Tifa’s decision to murder was spur of the moment, the split second after his recognition of her, her recognition of him – and more importantly what he had become. Aeris had no high-minded reasons for trying to off a SOLDIER. There was a fuzzy period in Cloud’s recent past in Midgar when he became something of a destructive force in the slums of Sectors Three and Four. He got attacked and fended off some thugs from one of the gangs operating over there with enough force to gain a price on his head.</i>
</p><hr/><p>Tifa tries and fails to kill Cloud; she meets Aeris who is trying to do the exact same thing for different reasons.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Aerti Week 2018 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Killing Cloud</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the prompt 'After Death' - encouraged by Nautilusopus and hugely indebted to Raaj for the idea of Cloud's mishaps prior to his meeting Tifa at the station.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cloud Strife was a difficult man to kill. Not for want of trying or opportunities. Tifa’s decision to murder was spur of the moment, the split second after his recognition of her, her recognition of him – and more importantly what he had become. A SOLDIER, a tool of Shinra. The enemy. This one in the guise of a barely casual acquaintance from home. Before the fire. And yet something was wrong. The wrongness spared his life for a spell – he insisted he had seen her last five years prior and not seven. That he was there in the final days of Nibelheim. And he was about to walk right back out of her life. Panic forced Tifa to blurt out Avalanche’s planned assault on the reactor. They needed help, needed muscle, why not use him? A poetic justice in using this SOLDIER against his creators (his story never became less baffling or unbelievable. No one left SOLDIER. No one once part of the elite of the elite became a mercenary. There was something truly odd here).</p><p>There was little way Cloud could genuinely be a SOLDIER, or wield his ludicrous sword with any degree of control. He had no prep – unlike Barret, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie. He had only limited ideas about the current plan. He would pose a risk to the others, but there was every chance Cloud would mess up and get killed sharpish. His death would fulfil two functions; distraction and closure. As it stood he represented a last dangling and frustrating thread from her former life. A long-lost neighbour should be someone to cling to. But he was treacherous; someone who signed up to the possessive force of Shinra and thus could not be so easily forgiven. Her call to Barret forced an invention and more lies; Cloud was a childhood friend – and trust-worthy.</p><p>Should have been the end of it. Cloud Strife, cut down in a hail of gunfire certain to the last he was a SOLDIER. And yet, he survived. Helped Jessie to escape the reactor’s blast and plucked a flower from who knew where (a better quality flower than Tifa had seen ever since her arrival in the city). A gift for Marlene – though how much resulted from Barret’s glaring? So why- Oh. Oh, he’d called her out to the Water Tower hadn’t he? The memory surfaced. Did he know he was one of many she met? Cloud at least made no move to push his luck; no request for a kiss, a proposal or a fleeting intimacy (no doubt for boasting for the individual had she ever consented. She never did and never saw any – bar Cloud - again). He told her of his plans; and wrong-footed her. So she brought up the promise.</p><p>The promise gave her another shot at him – and time to think. The poison didn’t work; absolutely trusting, or naïve perhaps. He took the drink she mixed behind the bar (back turned to conceal her hands as she slipped a healthy dose of rat poison in) and swallowed it without blinking. The expected effect disappointingly failed to appear and he was close to walking out until she stayed his hand. The money he demanded was a nuisance, but if he died in the next mission, they would not lose it for long. Third attempt; Tifa went in person to see he fell on the next reactor assault.</p><p>And fall Cloud did; plummeting from a catwalk right down into Sector Five. The roof of the church below would break his fall, but surely not enough to allow survival. Barret’s innate distrust of Cloud made concerns of his fate easy to brush off as they returned to base. Tifa heaved a sigh of relief before despairing at the need to tangle with Don Corneo. She took solace in the certainty one SOLDIER was no more. Until her heart lurched on the trip to Sector Six. Cloud Strife, alive and uninjured was sitting in a playpark with some girl in pink. And all she could do was hope he did not spot her.</p><p>He did. But so did Aeris Gainsborough; smiley, flirty, touchy. An astonishing force of life in the slums, contrasted directly with the mirk in which she lived. She sold flowers – including the one Cloud brought home. She was also trying to kill Cloud.</p><p>Tifa blinked and gaped at her in the sewers after the drop from the Don’s bedroom. Her too?</p><p>Unlike Tifa, Aeris had no high-minded reasons for trying to off a SOLDIER. There was a fuzzy period in Cloud’s recent past in Midgar when he became something of a destructive force in the slums of Sectors Three and Four. He got attacked and fended off some thugs from one of the gangs operating over there with enough force to gain a price on his head. The bounty attracted a great deal of attention; Aeris was trying to collect. Her official job of flower seller allowed her cover and a wide margin of success; she could get close easily and who would suspect a flower girl? She specialised in poisons, tiny needles to prick fingers and palms as she sold flowers. On a few higher profile targets she used rose thorns directly.</p><p>Cloud represented a significant failure; the intended needle blunted as it struck his skin, it’s toxic cargo marring his finger instead. For most a possibility of death remained associated, but not for a SOLDIER (was he what he said?). Cloud was still alive. Aeris smirked at Tifa’s expression unsurprised by her intolerance for the man. So why not join forces? They could work together to murder him and collect the reward. Tifa would achieve the closure she sought, Aeris would get paid; they would split the money 50:50. Tifa said yes.</p><p>But circumstances got in the way; the fall of Sector Seven should be a simple end to Mr. Strife. At least, it would had it not been for the risk to Marlene, the fatality to Avalanche, the risk to a huge crowd of friends and acquaintances. Aeris’s capture necessitated her rescue by Tifa – and hey, maybe Shinra would know how to deal with a rogue SOLDIER? One SOLDIER might not have been able to stop Sephiroth before, but that was in the middle of nowhere without support?</p><p>Not long after gaining entry to the Shinra building it seemed the company was pathetically ill-equipped to deal with a rogue SOLDIER. Cloud still lived.</p><p>He did seem to have a personal death-wish; he fought with everyone who stood in their way, rode a bike through a plate-glass window and onto rain-slicked streets in the night-time. Heading out from the city with no provisions and only a vague idea of a direction. All decisions - in a normal course of events - that should have seen him struck down swiftly. But the opportunity never came.</p><p>Aeris left the city with them and her excuse sounded plausible enough, taking cover in truths the head of Shinra exposed to her companions. A tension Tifa had not been aware of evaporated; Aeris accompanying them as they went further was oddly pleasing. No time to dwell on the unexpected reaction; Kalm should have been the first opportunity to off their prey. Too tired and Cloud’s revisit to their alleged shared past sent Tifa into a new low. But now Aeris was there to hold her as night fell. Secure and safe in Aeris's wondrous embrace.</p><p>Opportunities could come at any time, but it was hard to drag her attention from Aeris. Cloud was there and when he paused by a cliff there was a chance- But taking advantage would mean stopping her conversation with Aeris. Her friend, her best friend. Someone Tifa felt amazingly comfortable with as they talked, as she learned little bits and pieces of her past. In turn she offered fractions of her own and taking care not to trip on the weird anomalies of Cloud’s version. Holding hands began as something they did for crossing areas with poor footing but when the ground was level it never seemed necessary to stop.</p><p>Their first kiss came at the Chocobo Farm, as Cloud haggled for prices. An experience needing a repeat as soon as possible once they were alone in their room. Kissing, holding hands; distractions from the goal. Tifa remembered too late perhaps Cloud’s Chocobo could befall an accident and leave him vulnerable to the Midgar Zolom. By the time she could murmur the plan, the party was across the swamp. And Aeris looked too good and- Night was too far away.</p><p>Junon gave them better privacy and they fell into bed, barely concerned with what opportunities they might miss with Cloud. Somewhere along the line, the need to punish, the need to destroy Cloud had faded away. Now he was an excuse; someone to follow, someone who let her keep on journeying with Aeris. Neither were concerned with him much now and their conversations pivoted on teasing whispers in public, interesting curios in the local area, holding hands, kissing-</p><p>The last attempt either made to kill Cloud came after meeting Priscilla. So many absurd contrivances in a plan to gain entrance to the Upper Plate of Junon; if he didn’t die in the attempt, nothing would be able to kill him. So many factors and risks: propelled into the air by a dolphin tail, to avoid the electrified fences, to survive a plummet back to the shallows if he missed- He was the perfect party member for the job, and he did so with minimal grumbling.</p><p>Cloud made it to Upper Junon; their last attempt on his life thwarted. Aeris seemed as unconcerned as Tifa. Like Tifa she was enjoying an excuse to roam the world. Following Cloud did have its drawbacks; now they also needed to follow him in his quest to find Sephiroth. No matter; there would be time for them to be alone together soon.</p>
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